Prayer for the Festivals of Light

The rebirth of the life-generating and life-sustaining sun
at the darkest moment of the seasons;
The oil of an ancient temple lamp burning beyond its limit;
A shining star in a dark sky illuminating the way;
The light of mercy revealed through prayer and devotion;
The guiding light of seven principles arising from the heart of
the Dark Continent.
This is the season of The Festivals of Light...
The Winter Solstice,
Chanukah,
Christmas,
Ramadan,
Kwanzaa
In the darkness of this Winter
during these terror filled and challenging times;
May we all find the light in darkness,
faith amidst struggle,
rebirth following change and loss,
and virtue and devotion in the face of great challenge.

Published in: Beben, M. T. (2002). New Wine: More Eucharistic Liturgies for 21st Century Small Faith Communities. Boulder, CO: Woven Word Press.

The Love of Wisdom

This year I graduated with my doctorate. As I prepared for graduation I struggled with the shift from perceiving myself as a student, to perceiving myself as a Ph.D., a Doctor of Philosophy. The self-construct of being a student was so ingrained in me that it was difficult to transcend.

I decided to look up the root meanings of the words doctor and philosophy. I discovered that the English word doctor comes from the Latin doctor, meaning "teacher;” and that the word philosophy comes from the Latin philosophia, meaning, “love of knowledge or wisdom."

When I combined these terms and realized that the phrase Doctor of Philosophy could be translated as Teacher of the Love of Wisdom, I had a visceral breakthrough in my self-perception. I recognized that I was holding onto the idea that being a Ph.D. meant that I had to be a master of knowledge and wisdom. To be honest, I surely did not feel like a master yet. But when I considered the idea that a Ph.D. degree was actually calling to be a "teacher of the love of wisdom," I found myself being able to hold that role easily within my heart and mind.

Indeed, on my journey toward my doctorate, I had grown to love wisdom and the journey of seeking it, and that I believe I can teach...I cannot teach wisdom, but I can teach the love of it, or at least try to share the love I have for the path of wisdom.

The Experience of Divine Guidance

Announcing the publication of...

The Experience of Divine Guidance: A Qualitative Study of the Human Endeavor to Seek, Receive, and Follow Guidance from a Perceived Divine Source

By Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

This research study examined the experience of seeking, receiving, and following guidance from a perceived source of divine wisdom. Nine advanced spiritual teachers (5 men and 4 women) from 7 spiritual traditions participated as coresearchers in this study. Coresearchers were North American or European born, predominantly Caucasian, California (USA) residents between the ages of 52 and 74. Coresearcher participation consisted of individual semistructured in-depth interviews. The questions and topics of discussion used for the interviews were developed through a process of researcher heuristic and spiritual self-inquiry. The results of a grounded-theory-based qualitative content analysis of the interview transcripts suggested that the experience of divine guidance, as measured in the current study, is characterized by a common structuring of the experience that includes general categories, factors, and patterns which appear to manifest into various particular and contextual forms depending on the individual person, event, and circumstance. The reported common structures of the experience included: The perception of a divine source of guidance; the experience of seeking, receiving , and following guidance from this perceived source; and various contributing, impeding, developmental , and mediating factors . Additionally, each coresearcher reported a unique metaphor of divine encounter that appeared to give them an archetypal and visceral way of describing and holding the experience. The researcher appeared to experience each of the coresearcher's metaphors of divine encounter through some kind of resonant learning or mimicking process. A Guidance Experience Template, Guidance Experience Evaluation Checklist, and Synthesized Guidance Practice were developed as aids to counselors, practitioners, and researchers exploring the experience of divine guidance. The findings of this study, and the development and implementation of guidance-related applications in this research, may advance the understanding of this common and historically significant human experience, and offer a valuable contribution to the fields of transpersonal psychology, spiritual guidance, and spiritual psychology.

Proquest Dissertations And Theses 2005.  462 pages; [Ph.D. dissertation].United States -- California: Institute of Transpersonal Psychology; 2005. Publication Number: AAT 3174544.

Index terms (keywords): Divine guidance, Guidance, Spirituality, Religious experience, Transpersonal psychology

Source: DAI-B 66/05, p. 2855, Nov 2005

Source type: DISSERTATION

Subjects: Developmental psychology, Religion, Theology

ISBN: 0542126788

The Divine Orchard

I have traveled through a long dark night of the soul. As I emerge from this sacred time of exploration and wonder, I am still unable to fully understand it, yet I can share that I feel as though I have traveled through the Divine Orchard that the Kabbalists speak of…

The following is my own mystical interpretation of the famous passage of the “Four Who Entered the Divine Orchard” from the Babylonian Talmud (Hagigah 14b):

Four seekers entered the Divine Orchard. The first seeker said to the others: “When you reach the stones of marble, do not speak the words: 'water, water'...for it is said: 'You that speaketh falsehood shall not be established before my eyes.'” The second seeker gazed and died. Of this seeker it is said: “Precious in the sight of the Divine is the transcendence of physical form.” The third seeker gazed and was stricken with Holy Madness. Of this seeker it is said: “Hast thou found the sweetness? Consume that which is sufficient, or be filled to overflowing.” And the fourth seeker cut down the shoots in renunciation. In the end, only the first seeker departed in peace.

• The first seeker sees the truth behind form, and leaves in peace.
• The second seeker gazes at the Divine and loses body, for one cannot gaze upon that which is formless without losing form.
• The third seeker gazes at the Divine and loses mind, for one cannot gaze upon that which is beyond thought without losing thought.
• The fourth seeker gazes at the Divine and loses heart, for one cannot gaze upon that which is beyond love and fear without losing all attachment.

During my journey into the orchard, I felt all four forms of seeking within me: At times I felt as though I was going to die, and at other times I felt as though I was transcending my constructs of the physical universe; At times I thought I was losing my mind, and at other times I felt a loosening of my mental constructs; At times I felt myself losing heart and faith, and at other times I felt a loosening of my emotional attachments; and throughout the process I felt a soft whispering presence holding me and showing me the way through the orchard’s maze of truth and illusion.

REFERENCES

Louis Jacobs. Jewish Mystical Testimonies. New York: Schocken Books, 1997.

Gershom Scholem. Jewish Gnosticism, Merkavah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1960.

Isidore Epstein. The Soncino Press Babylonian Talmud: Ta’anith/Megillah/Hagigah. Brooklyn, NY: The Soncino Press, 2001.

*Originally published on KabbalahBlog hosted by Enlightenment.com